Riddles at the Plate

The summer before sophomore year, I worked as a lifeguard at the municipal pool while nursing a baseball injury that had me benched for the season. My mom kept leaving those chewable vitamin C tablets on the counter, orange flavored and shaped like bears, like they could fix everything that felt broken about me.

Then there was Jordan—senior, varsity captain, the kind of guy who moved through the hallway like he owned the oxygen. He'd show up at the pool during my shift, sometimes with his teammates, sometimes alone. We'd talk about nothing important, floating in that weird space between friendship and whatever this was becoming.

The real problem was Marcus, a walking bull of a junior who lived to make people feel small. He'd corner me by the lockers, knock my books out of my hands, mock my injured arm. 'What's the matter, little man? Water in your ears?'

One August afternoon, Jordan found me sitting behind the pool's storage shed, hiding after another Marcus encounter. He didn't say anything at first, just cracked open a soda and sat beside me.

'You know what the Sphinx asked Oedipus?' Jordan said suddenly.

I stared at him. 'What?'

'It's from mythology. The Sphinx's riddle: what walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?' He looked at me sideways. 'The answer is man—we crawl as babies, walk upright, then use canes when we're old. But the thing is, the Sphinx only asked because she wanted to be defeated. She wanted someone to finally see her.'

I thought about that for a long moment. The chlorine smell, the distant splashes, Jordan's knee pressing against mine.

'Marcus isn't a riddle,' I said. 'He's just mean.'

Jordan laughed. 'Yeah. But you're not solving him, dude. You're solving yourself.' He stood up, brushed grass off his shorts. 'Baseball tryouts are next week. I've seen you throw when you think nobody's watching. You're ready.'

He walked away without looking back, and I sat there with the vitamin taste still in my mouth, understanding something about growing up: some sphinxes you defeat, some you outlast, and some—like Jordan—you just let remain beautifully unsolved.